The Renegade Hope
by Revolutionary in the making
Summary: After being abandoned by the Illusive Man, a former sect of Cerberus has to make due with the remaining resources left to them: The Ultimate Supersoldier, a highly advanced ship, and entire galaxy waiting to be explored. You choose the path.
1. I'll help

Hello. I am new to this Mass Effect fan fiction writing, but if it is like anyother fanfiction community, I suspect tons of shipping between characters. There is nothing wrong with that. Its just not my cup of tea. This is an entirely different story that takes place in the Mass Effect Universe. I haven't decided when it will take placesimply because I am not sure what happens after the end of Mass Effect 3. I will pull up referencing from the game to back up a dynamic or feature in the story.

Also, there will be appearances from other characters including the crew of the Normandy. As I already stated, I am sort of deliberating with myself when this will take place. I'm sort of torn between having it set between Mass Effect 1 and 2 or placing it after or during Mass Effect 2. There are many plot elements that I want to explore that I suspect Bioware won't in the series. I promise not to intersect with the main storline too much. If and when my characters meet the Normandy crew, they will not overshadow them in anyway since it wouldn't make sense for the biggest badasses in the galaxy to be unimpactful or more impactful than anybody else.

To read this and understand this, you have to recall a full Paragon Shepard with the Colonist/War Hero background. He saved the council and pretty much did every mission that was available in Mass Effect 1 and "maybe" 2. Trust me, I will make some small details relevant. Enjoy.

* * *

The Renegade Hope

"Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!"

He stirred to the sound of speakers blaring. His eyes fluttered and scanned his surroundings trying to identify his location which was hued by an ominous red siren He was in a lab judging by the copious amount of technology. More specifically, he was in a tube of unidentifiable fluid. He couldn't move. He couldn't even bat an eyelash. The only part of his body that he was in control of was his eyes.

'Well this can't get any worse,' he mused to himself.

Before he could finish his thought, a door opened while a woman, covering her face and shielding herself, quickly scurried through them while the two other men, wearing no standard armor, opened fire covering her.

"Close the do-. " Before he could finish his demand, gunfire blasted the side of his face. Blood spewed out everywhere while his lifeless body collapsed to the ground.

His partner quickly closed the door, locked and sealed it shut, and then callously turned away from the downed man while shifting his attention to the female. The woman, not as unrepentant as he, quickly scurried over to the fallen soldier.

"Jon," she shrieked as she ran towards his corpse. Her cerulean eyes were beginning to flood with tears. She fell to her knees and her hands covered her face. The man in the tube couldn't get a glance of her face and only saw her golden long hair. Her other escort was apathetic towards her sniveling, and his cold dark eyes marveled at the essence of the tube.

"Hey, Doc," the man remarked while sporting a sly grin. "The lab rat is awake."

'I already hate this man.'

The woman wiped away her tears, turned on her heel, and walked towards the luminescent blue tube. Her piercing sky blue eyes gained a new aura of determination and met the eyes of the tube prisoner.

"Soldier," she chillingly stated, while typing diligently on the computer. "Get X's armor and weapon out of the vault."

'X? Am I X? Wait a minute, who in the hell am I? What the hell is going on? And who in the hell are these people? What the fuck happened to me?'

The soldier did as he was told without question, and immediately headed to the capsule-like pod. He inserted some sort of code, and a white armor emerged from the capsule. The confused man quickly scanned the capsule for anything that may be considered a weapon, but it was to no avail.

"Where is his weapon?"

"It should be on the armor's hilt," the scientist quipped back without even diverting her attention from her work.

The belligerent soldier glanced at the armor hilt, and a look of ire fell on his face.

"I know that you did not equip him with a Biotic Blade. I must be going crazy from too many concussive shots to the head and must be imagining that his weapon is an archaic devise. An artifact from those fanatics who thought it would be cool to bring a knife to a gunfight is the weapon of our savior?"

"He doesn't need a gun, and it would be inefficient for him to handle one since he never had weapons training. That sword," she pointed at the man in the tube, "Is the only weapon suitable for a man such as him. It was the Illusive Man's idea to give him a weapon of regal standing."

"Ever the romantic," the soldier responded while preparing the armor for wear. "Let's see if this 'Being of Mass Destruction' annihilates those batarian pirates and wasn't a colossal waste of time as the Illusive Man suspected."

"Well he goes nothing," the scientist closed her eyes as if she were praying. She pressed one final button.

The fluid began to drain as X began to descend to the floor. The constraining fluid disappeared as X gained his other 4 senses back. What would have been an empowering moment was shattered when the now released super soldier fell to his knees and began to regurgitate the blue fluid from his body. The scientist and the soldier just looked at the sickly man.

"Well," the man paused and readied his gun. "We're screwed."

The scientist obviously wasn't amused.

"Max, guard the door and make sure no batarian enters this room," she shooed him off and then sat next to her creation. She rubbed his back and caressed him as if a mother would an infant.

"Look," she began to plead. "I know the circumstances are dire for you, and judging from your cognitive awareness and your CAT scans, Cerberus never got to implement you with a control device. That means you still have your free will. So I beg of you. Help us. X, we need you."

'Bitch, fuck you. I don't even know what I am, who I am, and you want me to help you? I don't even know what I look like. Shit, I don't even know who you are. You and whoever else did this to me can rot for all I care.'

When he stopped upchucking fluid, he was about to utter his thoughts to her, and then his eyes met her illustrious blue irises. They were as tranquil and as clear as the sea. He could even see his reflection in them. She was gorgeous. Extravagant. She was beautiful. The kneeling subject sat up before he could get further lost in her mesmerizing gaze. He coughed up the last remains of the blue fluid.

"I'll help."

* * *

The scientist quickly fastened her creation in the suit of armor. She then started to quickly report on all of X's supposed abilities.

"In theory, you should be able to reach blistering speeds at a moment's notice without shattering your bones due to your reinforced bone marrow. Think of it as 'Godspeed.' There is not enough time to explain how this is possible, or how we did it. I also can't explain how you can make it work. That's up to you," she fastened the last piece of the armor. "Your armor should be able to detect enemy movement for you at will and release the necessary hormones in your body in a battle. It has night vision, heat sensors, and biotic detectors. It also has sensor tampering device that prevents you from being detected from all of those things that I just mentioned. It will be a valuable asset to you. Right now, I'm calibrating the suit to your psyche so that it will shift to your needs. It will also give you, and only you, the ability to turn on your blade. Your blade has, what we call, Smart Tech. It will come back to you if it is separated from you and no one else will be able to wield it. Any questions?"

"What is your name?"

Bewildered by his inquiry, the woman raised an eyebrow.

"It's Felicia. Dr. Felicia Harding"

"Now that you two are acquainted with one another," Max interrupted. "I think our batarian mates have been busy trying to hack the door open."

Felicia narrowed her eyes.

"That's odd," she pondered. "They're slavers. Not engineers. Unless they have a tactical squad, I don't see why didn't they just take out the power generators?"

Suddenly, the whole entire room went dark.

"Any other brilliant suggestions, Doc?" Max's voice was dripping with contempt.

"Stand back," X's voice was suddenly appeared from right behind Max. "Explain the situation to me."

"Christ!" Max jumped, "Where did you come from?"

The woman was astonished with how quick X has adapted to his abilities. She nodded in approval trying to hide her glee that her project was a success. She quickly scurried to the security module and unveiled her omni-tool.

"They're slavers who captured the rest of our team. We suspect that they want us alive since we are no good to them dead." The scientist interrupted as she started tampering with a control panel. "I'm not much of a hacker, but I'll see if I can get the back-up power generators on and running."

"I'll be your support if you need it, rookie," Max inputted as he cocked his gun.

"I won't need it."

* * *

Ten batarian pirates awaited in the dark while their brethren scout team surreptitiously crept up to the sealed door. The scout team was at least 80 meters ahead of the backup squad. They were in a long narrow corridor.

"How many humans are in there?" asked one of them while cocking his newly obtained M-8 Avenger.

"There should be two. I scoped one worthless human before the doors shut," the other responded while looking down the scope of his Lightning Strike Sniper Rifle.

"Just two humans?" Another chuckled with his Executioner shotgun on tow, "This will be fun."

"One was a female human," one inserted while cocking his Terminator Assault Rifle.

"A human female you say?" Shotgun wielding batarian pondered. "I got dibs on making her my personal slave. I remember the last one I had escaped because those damn humans let them free." [ref. Talitha]

"Shh, they opened the door. Turn on all of your sensors."

The Batarian back up cocked their weapons and aimed towards the entrance. They watched as their scout team entered the room.

"So far, so good."

Suddenly, a blue triangular shape figure appeared in the shadows. The bewildered recon team immediately opened fire, but it was only one quick burst. Before anybody in the recon team could get off two shots, the enigma quickly cleaved off the heads of all the squad members.

"What the hell was that?" exclaimed the M-18 Avenger owning batarian.

"It's dead," the sniper caught the shadow in his sights, and let off a shot. Right before he pulled a trigger, the mysterious being disappeared before his very eyes.

The astonished batarian frantically looked around for the enemy. "Where did he GAHH"

He couldn't finish his sentence because his body was being divided in half. His comrades watched as their comrade's blood sprayed all over them. The assault rifle owner caught a glimpse of the assailant and fired from the hip, but just like before the ripper disappeared in a blink of an eye. Within that very instant of realization, the pirate started to panic, but before he could so much as to whimper, he was quickly beheaded in front of his peers.

The remaining 8 of them stood in awe staring at a murderous enigmatic killer covered in their brothers' blood hovered over their corpses. In a matter of seconds, this thing slaughtered a whole squad of ten and then dashed the length of an entire football field to kill 2 more. What was this monster?

"2 down," they heard the atrocity utter. His soulless words struck fear in their bodies. You could hear the trembling of one unfortunate soul. They were frozen in freight as the ominous figure stood there as his blue sword illuminated the area. His bloodlust tainted the air around him, and his onlookers projected morbid grimace on their faces.

"I can't die here…," one of the pirates uttered and began to his first bound of retreating. Just as his first step towards freedom touched the ground, he felt a disconcerting hand on top of his head. The fearful batarian's eyes shifted upwards, and saw the abomination soaring above him with its hand clutched on his forehead. The attack was so sudden that the victim didn't even have the time to let out one final gasp before the warrior's blade sliced clean across his neck. The monster held on to the now bisected head of its victim, and then threw away with no regard. This thing had no mercy for them. The remaining 7 quickly came to that conclusion.

The shotgun wielding batarian gulped or what would seem to be one as the ominous presence was now arms length away. He quickly readjusted and pointed his weapon at the beast; but in one motion, it quickly sliced off the batarian's arms and legs. A blood curdling scream exited the 4 eyed pirate's lungs.

* * *

Agonizing screams piped through their communications unit. The 3 batarians that were assigned to watch over the captives listened in on the slaughter of their fellow shipmates. A cold shiver overcame their spines, and there was nothing but silences between them while the sounds of their fallen mates filled the room. Suddenly, there was nothing, but silence. No gunfire. No grunts. There was just an unnerving dead silence.

"What do we do?" One frantically asked. "Balak didn't say anything about this."[Reference, Bring Down the Sky]

"How am I supposed to know?" the other objected in the usual batarian gruff, deep voice. "I just thought we were assigned to take out one splinter group. I had no idea that we would deal with this."

"Screw this," the other declared. "I am sick of doing Balak's dirty work. I don't even like the bastard."

"Then why follow him?"

The batarians quickly turned their guns at the unusual intruder. It was wearing a white armor covered with batarian blood. His face was concealed, but knowing who owned the area, it was probably human.

"Who are you?" the batarian asked.

"All you should know that your comrades tried pointing a gun on me as well," he tilted his head in a quirky manner while clenching his weapon. "There corpses are still fresh from the slaughter."

The batarians glanced at one another, and then wisely lowered their weapons.

"Look," one responded. "We did not want to do this. We thought that this was just another slave run. We had no idea that we were attacking a Cerberus facility."

"Yes," he shrugged. "There is nothing wrong with attacking, kidnapping, and enslaving innocent people."

"Human," the batarian pleaded. "There is no need for this to turn ugly."

"It's too late for diplomacy," the enigmatic warrior unsheathed his weapon and got into his battle stance. "And it's already too late for your forgiveness. I'll make this quick."

"Stop," an outside voice called. Just as the one syllable command ended, X's blade was already at the batarian's throat. His on looking brothers were pointing at where the blade wielder was a second ago. A man with an assault rifle pointed at the pirates entered the room first, and then a woman followed behind him.

"We don't need any more senseless bloodshed," she declared while clasping her hands together. "Both sides lost people, and there doesn't need to be anymore. We will allow the remaining few of you to leave unscathed if you leave us alone."

"Deal," the one facing his impending demise quickly responded while nodding his head. Then he turned to his fellow shipmates. "Release the hostages."

* * *

There was a great deal of shuffling after the invasion ended. A few engineers were trying to get the main power generators back up while the medics healed the injured. Many wanted to thank their savior, but he was busy washing his own troubles away with the sweet poisonous drink.

"Barkeep, hit me, again!"

The bartender quickly stirred up some liquids and poured them into the glass. He slid the filled glass down the bar towards the recipient, and it was quickly gloved. Almost simultaneously, the glass was quickly exhaled as soon as his hands grasped it the cold drink. He, then promptly, slammed the, now empty, glass on the bar.

"Another," he demanded with a drunken slur in his word.

"X."

The drowsy drunk turned towards where the voice was coming from. It was Felicia, and seemed to be amused by her creation's way of relieving stress. She chuckled as she sauntered over towards him, and sat next to him.

"What's so funny?" he pondered with a bit of a daze in his voice.

"You are," she retorted with a luminescent blush in her cheeks. She scanned through her omni-pad as the drunken man, unknowingly to her, stared into her eyes. The man was lost in her beautiful eyes. He slowly leaned towards her as her eyes were too fiercely focused on the device to notice his advances. Just as she turned to him, he was already nose to nose with her. She could smell the liquor from his breath, and her alerted eyes bore into his drowsy ones. Her face was red all over, and she began to stutter.

"Umm," her eyes shifted away from his. "What are…you doing?"

The man gazed in her eyes for a second. He soon pressed his lips on her delicate lips. She tried to recoil away, but it was to no avail. Instead of putting a stop to the embrace, she welcomed it as a tingling sensation jolted through her body. She readjusted herself and instinctively tilted his head downward to allow the kiss to sink in deeper as she lost herself in temptation. The drunken man pulled her closer to his chest, and felt her heart bursting through her chest. The barkeep, who had been the only spectator to this whole event, was completely astonished. As his lips pried away from her lingering lips, she placed a hand on his chest.

The euphoric moment quickly came to a halt as the stammering man threw up all over the floor. Both Felicia and the barkeep were shocked by this sudden turn of events. When he relieved himself all over the floor, he turned towards the barkeeper.

"Another," he yelled out as he stumbled on the floor.

The barkeep and Felicia just glanced at one another, and then looked down on the passed out mess on the floor.

Finally, the bartender burst into laughter as Felicia meekly twiddled her fingers trying to recollect everything that just happened.

"Man," the barkeep held his sides as he laughed out boisterously. "He is going to be a hoot!"

* * *

I had an idea of letting you choose the outcome of certain events. Like letting you kill or being merciful to a victim. I thought that I'll let you decide in later chapters, but I am not going to be as diverse as the game. If you choose a negative outcome, you won't be able to go back into being a good guy. The same could be said about choosing the opposite outcome. Just saying. I don't have to fucking please you people.

Thanks for reading. Please review and if you have ideas for me, please send me a message. I'll be happy to read them.


	2. I must have been a real asshole

I am so sorry. I've been busy and shit happened and damn...I fucked up. I didn't get any reviews...sadly. But hey, what the hell? Anyways, here is the chapter. Hope you enjoy.

* * *

"So you've failed to capture her?" the batarian snarled at his men.

"But Commander Balak, sir," they pleaded.

The batarian held out his hand to silence them, and gave them a glare that was prevalent in all 4 of his eyes.

"Don't you dare make excuses," he commanded them, but one of them was not intimidated in the least.

"Balak, what the hell?" He stood out amongst his brethren. "I told you time after time that I am not an asset for your rebellion against the humans, but you send us to invade a Cerberus base? You told us it was a simple slave grab, but it turned out that we had to put down massive resistance then once we killed that, a monster massacred a large chunk of our men…"

Balak sat up in his chair startled by his outspoken lackey's words. "The humans had a monster?" he asked as the statement obviously piqued his interest. "

What? Did they somehow tame a Thresher Maw?" "No," he scoffed. "I _wish_ it was a Thresher Maw."

He casually shot the mercenary and kept firing. Eventually the batarian that stood before him was incapacitated, but the ruthless leader didn't stop putting rounds in his corpse. The other two mooks just cowered away from the act of malicious intent. Balak soon ran out of heatsinks, but that didn't stop him from pulling the trigger.

_Click-click-click-click-click_

He callously tossed the gun away as if nothing happened. He diverted his attention towards the remaining two.

"I got tired of his mouth."

* * *

He arose in a comfortable room from his drunken slumber. The man known as X shook his head and groaned from his hangover. He held his head and grunted in pain.

"God, what the hell happened to me?" He groaned as he sat up in his bed wearing nothing, but briefs. His rippling muscles cracked as he stretched them. He yawned as he stood up on his feet, and sought out anything resembling a restroom within the dark and dreary confines. There were three doors in the residence: One on left of the bed and two on his right. He shrugged and decided to check out the one on the left.

The slides opened after he pressed the holographic door panel, and revealed that this door was the entrance to his room. He peaked out from the side of the door frame and glanced down the narrow hallway to see if anybody was around. Luckily for him, there was nobody. 'Everybody must be sleep,' he thought to himself. He closed the door slide, and searched the home once more. He opened one of the door slides on the right, and there were nothing but clothes neatly folded and stacked on top of eachother. Obviously, this is a closet. He picked up some of the clothes and closed the door slide. He gazed at the final, unchecked door.

'Hopefully, this is the bathroom.'

He touched the holographic door panel, and it revealed a silver sink in a counter, a mirror, a showerhead, and multiple bottled soaps and moistures. He placed his clothes on the counter as the automatic lights turned on. He looked in the mirror and checked himself out. His dark skin was as smooth as a baby's bottom. His eyes were extremely dark. So dark that it was nearly impossible to distinguish his iris from his pupil. He sported a goatee and his hair was cut short. He smirked because he was relieved that nothing seemed abnormal about his face at least. When his eyes glanced down to check the rest of his body out, everything else seemed fine…but the gray box in his left chest cavity.

"**What the fuck?**"

He panicked. Why was he panicking? There was a box expunging out of his skin in the place where his heart should be. He paced out of his room, and sat on the bed. He didn't know what to do? He placed his hands on the object, and felt around it for something, _anything, _that would relieve him of it. He frantically searched all over the impeding object, but there was nothing he could do. The door slides opened and between them stood Felicia carrying tray of food. She glanced at the frantic man trying to rip out the object in his chest.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she suggested while walking in his room.

He stopped and glared at the woman. "Why shouldn't I?" She sat the trey on the desk, and then sat right next to him on the bed.

"Well, that's your heart," she stated while pointing at it. When he raised an eyebrow in confusion, she continued. "When you arrived to this facility, you were missing a heart and a part of your lung. So we made you a multifunctional heart."

"Multifunctional?" he asked with a worried expression.

"Don't worry," she reassured him. "It still has the normal function of a regular heart, but it also the core of your abilities. The finishing product of Amazaku Project."

She noticed that his confusion only grew and then she giggled to herself.

"Okay," she smiled at him while biting her bottom lip. "You not only lost your memories, but didn't even bother to ask what you are? No wonder you drank yourself to sleep last night."

"Well," he tilted his head to the right trying to be coy. "I recall me being thrown into a rescue mission the minute I woke up so I didn't have time for much briefing."

She burst into laughter while the experiment didn't find this whole situation to be funny in the slightest. He tilted his head to the left.

"Just tell me that you didn't make that gesture at the batarians," she pointed while laughing. "If you did, please realized that you insulted them and made them think you were superior to them."[Reference. Batarian culture]

"I guess it's a habit," he shrugged.

"Okay," she calmed down and caught her breath. "The Amazaku Project is you. You were the perfect human for the job since you didn't have a heart and were effectively dead."

"I was dead!" he exclaimed. She nodded and then handed him a glass of water. He took the glass.

"As I was saying," she cleared her throat. "The goal of the Amazaku project was to a human mass relay that didn't need to take time to cool down. I've done work on the biotic implant L5n [Reference. Vanguard class] which enabled the subject to transport through solid objects at the speed of light. The problem with this implant, however, was the ability to not be consistently used and its short distances that it covered."

"That's where I come in?" he pointed at himself.

"Yes," she nodded in agreement and then looked down. "But you aren't a biotic in anyway. You are something beyond it. Unlike most Biotics who have to be born or reborn with the exposure of Element Zero, you don't run on it. You run on dark energy."

"That sounds dangerous."

"Well it is," she sighed as she shifted her position and rested her hands on her lap. "We researched the Mass Relays and found out that dark energy enables FLT travels so without it, the user couldn't constantly use the FTL travel and travel would only go to limited distances and would be impossible to maneuver while using it so they would have to have a specific target before using it. So instead of using pure element zero, I theorized that dark energy in the mass relay not only enables FTL travel, but also maneuvers and controls the speed as well."

Felicia glanced over at X and saw the dumbfounded expression on his face. "What?"

"In Layman's terms," she looked up to the ceiling trying to think of an analogy. "You are able to go really, really fast at any distance without needing a break or having to wait until you are able to do again."

"So I can go the speed of light?" he looked at himself. "That's amazing."

"Well, you can if the conditions are extreme enough, but I wouldn't recommend it," she corrected him. "That heart of yours not only pumps blood and dark energy throughout your body, but it also limits the speed you travel as well by thinning out the dark energy. The L5n always made the user exhaust all of their biotic potential and power in one outing. You, however, can go faster than a bullet as well as maneuver without worrying about exhausting too much energy. Of course, we had to give you secondary abilities like an enhanced adrenaline fluid that effectively slowed down time so you could react during that speed, and a stronger bone structure as well as muscles. Not to mention, turning your entire body into miniature conduit for natural electrical pulses. And then we had to prevent the dark energy from aging you too prematurely."

She took a deep breath as X stared at her with wide eyes.

"It was really quite exhausting," she inputted. "But I assure you that you are very much human…_to an extent. _I have one warning for you. Do not go FTL speeds constantly. The speed that you usually go at is just fine and won't degrade your body. If you decide to travel at FTL, your body will age significantly. Understood?"

He nodded. She got up.

"I left breakfast for you so I'll leave you alone," she headed out the door before X clasped her hand. Startled, she turned and looks at him. "What is it?"

He somberly looked away trying to hide his tears, but it was obvious. "Was there anything you knew about my past?" he muttered.

"No," she quickly responded. "Your file was empty."

"So there were no reports on a funeral, no missing persons, nothing…nobody bothered or even cared?" He began to plead while he looked at Dr. Harding who turned away from him.

"No," she answered. "Nobody looked for you."

He chuckled as tears flooded down his face. Felicia couldn't turn around to face him, but nor did she try to pry her hand at clutches. "I must have been a real asshole, y' know?" he branded a smile on his face as tears ran down his cheek. "Not one person cared to see me gone. Not one person even bothered to even look for me."

Felicia was silent.

"That's an accomplishment," he added in as he licked his lips tasting his tears. "A real fucking lifetime achievement."

"If it means anything to you," she coldly responded. "Your memories should come back to you. The reason for your current amnesia is because I woke you up too early."

"I don't think I even want to remember who I was," he reiterated while choking up. "I mean apparently I wasn't even worth acknowledging."

Felicia looked down as the broken man released her hand from his grasp.

"I'm sorry," she added in as she left him to his brooding.

* * *

Max Alexander was a seasoned military veteran. He has been in many squads and fought in many battles. So he knew where the first place to look if he ne needed to find a rookie who had just experienced his first taste of battle.

"Anderson," the soldier called out to the busy bartender while walking into the makeshift bar. "Did you happen to, by chance, serve our Lab Rat?"

The bartender smiled and nodded towards drunk who was inhaling drinks. Max silently crept beside the alcoholic warrior. Hoping to surprise him, the wily veteran attempted to place a wavering hand on his shoulder. It didn't work.

"What do you want?" the drunk asked, lifting the glass up in his mouth. The soldier, caught off guard, quickly pulled his hand away and wracked his mind for an excuse.

"Its standard military protocol," he lied. "It's none of your concern what I want."

The dejected man just shrugged and then diverted his attention to the empty glass. He raised his hand signaling to the barkeep. Max casually sat himself next to the degenerate and nodded at the barkeep for a drink as well. The bartender obliged and quickly stirred up so concoction. Then the beverage magician poured the beverage in an aesthetically pleasing way before sliding the drinks down the counter. The men caught the drinks unimpressed with the barkeeper's showmanship.

"Show off," X taunted while bringing the foaming glass up to his lips.

"So how was she?" Max asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"Ms. Harding," the grizzled man specified, hoping to bolster his memory. "How was she?"

"Now I know _who_ you are talking about," the younger man narrowed his eyes with annoyance. "But I still don't know _what_ you are talking about."

"So you are telling me that you had a fine piece of ass like Dr. Harding trade spit with you," he chuckled with amusement. "And you don't remember it?"

"Nothing happened," the barkeeper added in with a wink. "The young lady was so embarrassed that she dashed out the bar, and Casanova, over here, was too passed out to remember anything or even _perform_."

Max laughed hard, slapping his knee. "That is interesting," he muttered between his giggles. "Me thinks the doctor has more than a little interest in her science project."

X was not amused with the insinuations. He took a sip of his drink and impatiently tapped his fingers on the counter as the man bellowed.

"That would explain why she took such lengths reviving you," he calmed down, staring in his drink. "I mean, as far as we know, she made a super soldier out of civilian with no known combat expertise or background. Hell, from what I hear, she literally begged the Illusive Man for a facility, and now we are out here in this abandoned hellhole, Chohe [Mass Effect Assignment. UNC: Besieged Base]. I find that odd that she selected you for the project of all the more qualified candidates. Don't you?"

He had a point, X pondered. Why did she choose him? Why did she revive him? The doctor was definitely hiding something from him. With that, he downed the remaining liquid in the glass and abruptly rose from his seat. He turned on his heel and headed towards the exit and left the soldier to his drink.

"Now to get answers out of the doctor," Max whispered to himself watching the guinea pig leave the premises.

* * *

"This isn't going to work," the lone scientist scanned the data while talking to herself. "The biotic blade is a make shift weapon, but it isn't energy efficient."

She quickly scurried over to the weapon on her desk and began to tinker with it. She sighed as she caught a glimpse at the armor stained with batarian blood.

"The armor is too padded down and clunky to work in the long run," she evaluated while tinkering with the blade. "I think X has a more suitable replacement in the armory."

Suddenly, she heard the doors slides open behind her. She immediately ceased what she was doing and quickly turned towards the visitor. It was the commanding officer of the facility, Max Anderson.

"Hello, officer," she stuttered. "What brings you here to my humble abode?"

"Oh nothing," he responded taking a seat across from her. "Just checking up on my lead scientist."

Felicia was unnerved by the man's presence. To avoid him seeing her weariness, she continued her work on the Biotic Blade.

"What are you working on?" his booming voice sent shivers down Felicia's spine.

"Umm," her voice trembled, trying to muster enough courage to answer him. "Well, the biotic blade needs some upgrading and I was about to order a lighter armor for X."

The visiting officer raised an eyebrow in intrigue. "You seem to care an awfully huge amount about him."

She gulped and froze at the commander's words. 'Did he find out about the embrace X and she had?' she wondered.

"Well," she regained what little composure she had. "I'm doing my best to ensure the project is a—"

"You can cut out the act now," the man demanded. "I know you are hiding something and I know what happened yesterday."

Felicia froze in her step. She didn't know what to do or say. She just stared at him.

"But that doesn't matter right now and isn't the reason why I am here," the man smirked. "The Illusive Man demanded me to escort you for conference. He wants me to escort you for conference."

* * *

Before she could confirm her compliance, Max grabbed her arm and pulled her along forcibly.

It was a dark room. The light was dim and the room consisted of nothing but a white table with the Cerberus logo branded on it. Max stood at attention as the wavering and scared woman patiently sat in her seat waiting for the moment for this conference to begin. Finally, the hologram projection of a man arrived. He was sitting down acting nonchalant and casual. His eyes were closed as if something were irritating him. He carefully placed a cigarette in his mouth and inhaled it before relieving a large puff of smoke. He opened his eyes and glared down the fidgety person in front of him. His eyes lacked a soul and emitted a cold blue aura. It frightened the girl enough not to look directly in his mechanical eyes. He crossed his leg over the other and tapped the ash into his tray.

"So," his voice seemed restrained and deliberate. "According to my Intel, the Amazuku project was a success."

She reluctantly nodded her head in approval, but diverted her eyes downward. "I am making adjustments to him now—"

"There is no need, "he cut her off with a hint of agitation in his voice. "From what I read, you took a civilian with no history of membership or loyalties to this organization and implanted in him trillions of credits worth of technology without my authorization."

"Sir," she gulped. "If you give me more time, I can make him more suitable and—"

"No," he roared. "You disobeyed me. Do you know how many biotics that I sacrificed to you to manipulate the dark energy [ref. dark energy needs to be manipulated by biotics to be harnessed]. Now all that work is no longer under our control."

"I used countless biotic lives to ensure this project was a success," she reaffirmed. "I know that, but there was lives didn't go to waste and I regret what I did to them but—"

"I don't care about the lives lost on this project of yours," he coldly remarked. Felicia was in shock. He continued. "They died for humanity's sake and nothing more. But this project is too inefficient and it has too many variables."

"What are you suggesting?" she meekly let out.

The Illusive man stared her down. He latched his hands together and neatly placed them on his lap. He sported an emotionless expression on his face.

"You are a valuable asset to Cerberus, Dr. Harding," he inquired. "The only reason why you weren't implanted with a control chip and not thoroughly interrogated was that the fear of your astounding abilities would deteriorate. You gave us the L5n implant and, now, the Amazaku. It took you two years to make the ultimate soldier and I commend you."

She looked down with disappointment. 'Is that all she was? A weapons maker? A dealer of death? Where did this all go so horribly wrong?' she thought to herself.

"I don't know what you were hoping to accomplish here," he continued before unraveling his hands and grasping the lit cigarette. "But I won't relinquish a single iota of control from my grasp."

"What?" she squeaked and arose out of her seat.

"I want you to put the project out of his misery, take out his heart, and give it to me so I can find a more suitable substitute," he demanded. "I also want the schematics and blue prints that you so carelessly forgot to give me in the span of two years."

She couldn't do that. She already had enough sins on her plate. She couldn't allow Cerberus to create an army of super soldiers. He would become a warlord and nothing would be able to stop him. She bestow him with that much power.

"Yes sir," she muttered under her breath.

She had to escape with X. If she didn't, the Illusive Man would reign supreme. But if she did escape somehow, they would be fugitives for the rest of their lives. What should she do?

* * *

Okay, choice #1. I'm going to tell you right now, this isn't the game. I won't bend to your choice. I already have a set path that I want to take. I will, however, show you how you fucked up in your choice. That is more than you can get out of most writers. Oh, and X is not the protagonist or the vehicle that brings about these choices. That is Felicia's job. Oh and yeah. Please review. Just pretend that I am naked.


End file.
